Sunday, November 15, 2009
All he is asking is give youth a chance
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Thomas Wright
Wright, of Roanoke, is a recent graduate from the University of South Carolina and a 2005 graduate of North Cross School.
Most cover letters start with one's accolades and then progress to why the individual is qualified for a certain job, using the same language and technique for the most part. As a writer, reader and individual, I personally find the same recipe or technique of anything to be utterly mundane and boring when repeated again and again. No one wants to read the same babble over and over unto the brink of cataleptic shock. In many respects it was this concept of mindless repetition that drove America into the 2008-09 recession.
One of the most disappointing aspects of the present job market is that those innocent of any wrong-doing are severely affected. Recent graduates and other young and inexperienced professionals have suffered immensely from the 2008 economic meltdown. This is by no means a cheap shot at those suffering through foreclosures, layoffs or any other fiscally traumatic experience (the ones trying to feed a family without a paycheck). No one deserves to be put into that type of situation unless it is completely of their own doing (and of course some were and are).
My point here is that recent graduates and young people do not deserve to suffer from a previous generation's, or multiple generations', failures. There is a famous Herbert Hoover quotation that states, "Older men declare war, but it is the youth that must fight and die." I find this quotation relevant to my argument because my generation is presently fighting to attain even the paltriest of positions in the current job market. We are the ones who are left to scurry and scrabble because of others' wrong doings.
While the Ken Lewises (Bank of America) of the world prepare to retire on exorbitant pensions, it is my contemporaries and I who must put the pieces back together (ie. national debt). Common sense surely suggests that we do not deserve to suffer because of others' ignorance, avarice and complacency.
It is based upon this concept that I find the recent graduates of this country to be most deserving of positions within America's economy. We are the ones with the most potential, the ones with the least baggage, and the ones with the most to gain. Somewhere within all the bailout legislation should have been nested a clause demanding the old be replaced by the new.
America needs new blood to flow through its economic veins, but what we have seen for years is the old blood being replaced by young blood that is a simple facsimile of the old. Instead of fresh faces and ideas, corporate and business leaders have for years chosen and elected those of the younger generations whose only proficiency is to vacuously recite the old ways. This is a significant reason why many of our older institutions and companies fail. Rather than progress, they stay stagnant, and anything that is stagnant for too long will die. Look no further than the American automotive industry for a relevant example of this.
Thus, when it comes to hiring the young and inexperienced, it is time recruiters and employers begin to change their approach. Let us not recirculate and restaff simply upon the foundations of experience. Instead companies, firms and businesses need to give the youthful and inexperienced a chance.
I am by no means advocating an abdication of executive corporate power in businesses across the country. That being said, however, I am advocating for recent graduates to be given an equal opportunity to attain employment. We have scholastically progressed through the academic institutions of America; now give us the chance to do the same within the professional ranks of this country.
